I longed to cry out 'I will,' when father made his passionate appeal,
'Come, then, and trust your soul to this faithful friend.' Like a
flash it came over me that if I needed conviction of sin, He was able
to give me even this also. I would trust Him for the whole. My whole
soul was illumined with joy, and as I left the church to walk home, it
seemed to me as if Nature herself were hushing her breath to hear the
music of heaven.
"As soon as father came home and was seated in his study, I went up to
him and fell in his arms saying, 'Father, I have given myself to
Jesus, and He has taken me.' I never shall forget the expression of
his face as he looked down into my earnest, childish eyes; it was so
sweet, so gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon a landscape. 'Is
it so?' he said, holding me silently to his heart, as I felt the hot
tears fall on my head. 'Then has a new flower blossomed in the kingdom
this day.'"
If she could have been let alone, and taught "to look up and not down,
forward and not back, out and not in," this religious experience might
have gone on as sweetly and naturally as the opening of a flower in
the gentle rays of the sun. But unfortunately this was not possible at
that time, when self-examination was carried to an extreme that was
calculated to drive a nervous and sensitive mind well-nigh distracted.
First, even her sister Catherine was afraid that there might be
something wrong in the case of a lamb that had come into the fold
without being first chased all over the lot by the shepherd; great
stress being laid, in those days, on what was called "being under
conviction.
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